In the train compartment, Curry fussed about making sure they’d have everything for the long ride north, until Ian sent him off. Rain and gathering dusk darkened the sky.  Beth sank to the cushions and watched Ian yank the curtains closed against the gloom.

The train’s whistle hooted, the steam hissed, and the train jerked forward. Ian braced himself against the polished wall as the train rolled away from the station.

Beth leaned against the cushions, exhausted. “I could wish Curry had found a book or something for me,” she said. “Or we could have stopped for my needlework.” “Why?”

“For when you go a-roaming, up and down the train. I must keep myself occupied somehow.”

“I’m not going to roam the train.” Ian snapped closed the lock on the door. “You are here.”

“You mean you will stay alone with me? Without a chaperone?” Despite their bit of play in her bedchamber the day Fellows’s secret had been revealed, Ian had again kept his distance.

 “I have a question to ask you.”

Beth stretched one arm across the back of the seat, hoping she looked provocative. “And what is that, husband?” Ian leaned down, his body hemming her in. His large fists rested on the seat back behind her. “Do I love you?” Her heart banged in her chest. “What a question.” “When you were ill, when Mrs. Palmer hurt you, I knew I’d die if you died. There would be nothing inside me, just a hole where you used to be.”

“Exactly how I would have felt if Inspector Fellows had let you go to the gallows or back to the asylum,” Beth said softly.

“I never understood before. It’s like fear and hope, both warm and cold. All mixed together.”

“I know.”

He cupped his hands around her face. “But I don’t want to hurt you. I never, ever want to hurt you.”

“Ian, you aren’t your father. From what you and your brothers have told me, you’re nothing like him. You left Sally rather than hurt her. You protected Hart from Fellows, and you thought you were protecting Lily. Everything you’ve done is to try to help people, not harm them.”

He stood silently, as though debating whether to believe her. “I have the rage inside me.”

“Which you know how to control. He didn’t. That’s the difference.”

“Can I ever be sure?”

“I’ll make you sure. You said yourself he caused you too much misery and that you and your brothers need to be done with him. Please, Ian. Let him go.”

Ian closed his eyes. Beth watched emotions flicker across his face, the uncertainty, the stubbornness, the raw pain he’d lived with for so long. He didn’t always know how to express his emotions, but that didn’t mean he didn’t feel them deeply.

When Ian slowly opened his eyes, he guided his gaze directly to Beth’s. His golden eyes shimmered and sparkled, pupils ringed with green. He held her gaze steadily, not blinking or shifting away.

“I love you,” he said.

Beth caught her breath, and sudden tears blurred her vision.

“Love you,” Ian repeated. His gaze bore into hers harder than Hart’s ever could hope to. “Love you, love you, love you, love you, love you love you love you...”

“Ian.” Beth laughed.

“Love you,” he murmured against her lips, her face, against the curve of her neck. “Love you.” “I love you, too. Are you going to say it all night?”

“I’ll say it until I’m in you so hard I can’t speak.” “I suppose I’ll have to put up with that. It might be difficult, though I wouldn’t mind finding out.”

He paused. “Are you joking?”

Beth laughed until she slid out of the seat, but when she landed on the floor, Ian was right beside her. “Yes. I was joking.” She caught lan’s lapels in her hands. “I believe carnality is definitely called for. Perhaps we should send for Curry to pull out the bed.”

Ian got to his feet, tossed the cushions onto the other bench, and unlatched the hooks that unrolled the seat into a bed. “I don’t want Curry.”

“I see.”

Ian yanked the bed into place, then lifted Beth and laid her on it. He unlaced her boots with quick jerks, then unbuckled and unfastened every bit of her brand-new traveling clothes.

Moments later she lay back, naked in the chill air. Beth lifted one hand over her head, letting her breasts arch forward, while lan’s gaze warmed her like a blanket. She bent her knee, scooting her foot to her hip so he could see between her legs. It felt delicious and exciting to lie back for Ian Mackenzie and let him look his fill.

“Do you still love me?” she asked. “Or is it only desire?”

“Both.”

Ian tossed off his jacket, cravat, collar, and waistcoat in a few smooth moves, and had his shirt unbuttoned at cuffs and throat before she could blink. She watched his vee of brown chest come into view, then his strong thighs as he kicked out of his trousers and underdrawers. The shirt came off last.  Dark hair snaked down his chest, and muscles rippled as he tossed the shirt aside.

He didn’t give her much time to appreciate what she saw. He climbed up to the bed, on hands and knees around her.

“Carnality?” he repeated.

Her natural instinct to joke fled her. “Yes. Now. Please.”

Ian slid his ringers between her legs, swirling the moisture he found there. “Love me?”

“I do. I love you, Ian.”

He withdrew his fingers, sparkling wet, and licked one clean. “The best thing I’ve ever tasted.”

“Better than single-malt whiskey from the Mackenzie distillery?”

“I’d rather drink you than whiskey.”

“And you a Scotsman? You must be in love.”

“S’up.”

Beth clamped her lips shut, and they trembled. Ian lowered his head and licked between her legs. He savored that, eyes closed, than began to work on her studiously. The train moved back and forth in a steady rhythm, but the room seemed to spin.

“Ian, please.”

He rose on his hands and knees again, his rigid stem hanging heavily. “Spread for me.”

He didn’t wait, didn’t go slowly. He lifted her hips with one strong hand and shoved his way inside her.  The train rocketed over a bridge. Ian moved. He rested his weight on his fists, his muscles tightening, his skin gleaming with sweat.

“Love you,” he said as he thrust. “Love you, love you, love you.”

“Ian.” He was hard and moving fast, and she opened to him, hot, slick, and wet.

His words trailed off into grunts, and soon the sounds she made were just as incoherent. He drove his hips, pushing hard, harder.

Ian dropped onto to her, the slick sweat on his chest meeting the heat of hers. He clenched his teeth and forced his gaze to hers.

“Love. You.”

The man who couldn’t look anyone in the eyes was making himself do it, no matter what the pain. He was giving her a gift, the greatest one he could, straight from his heart.

Tears poured from Bern’s eyes at the same time her body wrenched into hot waves of joy. “I love you, Ian Mackenzie.” One more thrust, two, and he threw his head back, the cords of his neck tight. His seed burst out of him into her, and then they were twined together, arms and legs, lips and tongues.

“My Beth,” he whispered, his breath hot on her swollen lips. “Thank you.”

“For what?” Beth couldn’t stop crying, but she smiled, her face aching with it.

“Setting me free.”

Beth knew he didn’t mean from the asylum. He kissed her again, his mouth rough, bruising, then sank down to her. Their bodies fit together, hot and spent, hands caressing, cradling, touching.

“You’re welcome,” she said.

Epilogue

One month later


Ian and Beth had another wedding at Ian’s home in Scotland, a house ten miles north of Kilmorgan, under the shadow of the mountain. Ian called it a “modest” house, but it was a mansion in Beth’s opinion, though it was only a quarter the size of Kilmorgan.

The wedding was held at the village church, and there Ian slid a wide band covered with sapphires onto Beth’s left hand. He smiled in triumph when he kissed her.  The bride and groom and family returned to the house and garden to a wedding banquet that Curry had worked on for weeks. Everything had to be exactly right, from the flowers threaded through the arbor to the pate to the champagne and whiskey that flowed freely to all guests.  Friends from Edinburgh and London arrived, although Beth noticed that they were Hart’s, Mac’s, and Cameron’s friends, not Ian’s. Beth, however, invited the young man called Arden Weston she’d met in the gambling hall in Paris. He arrived accompanied by his friend Graves and Miss Weston, his sister. They enjoyed themselves, drinking and making new friends, though Graves jealously regarded any gentleman Arden spoke to.

Inspector Fellows had come and brought his mother.  They still looked startled to be embraced by the family, still skittish like cats that had gone too long without a human touch. But they ate and drank with the other guests, the gulf between Fellows and the Mackenzies starting to narrow.

The family—Hart, Cameron and Daniel, Mac, and Isabella—squeezed Beth in so many hugs she thought her corset would bend and she’d never breathe again. She noted that Mac drank only lemonade and Isabella was careful never to be in the same room with him. Beth watched them, her mind whirling with plans.

Ian took Beth’s hand as she watched Isabella leave a room Mac had just walked into. Ian pulled her out of the house and through the garden and walked swiftly with her until they reached a little summerhouse on a rise.  “Leave them be,” he said.

Beth blinked, contriving to look innocent. “Who?”